Strengths and Opportunities

What are the program’s strengths and opportunities for improvement?

This section outlines the strengths and opportunities for improvement for the Kent Community Success program. It is based on results related to program goals and objectives, as well as interviews with the three site coordinators and the program director at the end of the 2024-25 program year that included questions about successes and challenges from the past year, and hopes for the future.

Program Strengths

In terms of strengths in 2024-25, all three sites demonstrated strengthening connections and relationships: with students, families, among students, and with school staff.

• With and among students: All three sites increased the percentage of participants who were regular attendees. For the whole Kent Community Success program, regular attendees increased from 18% of program participants in 2023-24 to 32% in 2024-25. Neely O’Brien had a significant increase from 2023-24 in the percentage of participants who were regular attendees (from 27% in 2023-24 to 100% in 2024-25).  At River Ridge, regular attendees increased from 41% in 2023-24 to 51% in 2024-25. At Mill Creek, the increase was from 12% to 21%. Additionally, the most common thing students said the program helped them with was making new friends (73% at Mill Creek, 64% at Neely-O’Brien, and 56% at River Ridge).
• With families: Mill Creek had a variety of events with high attendance at most events, and 108 adult family members attended at least one event during the year. Mill Creek and River Ridge had high family satisfaction with events based on participant surveys, particularly related to event offerings. At Mill Creek, 96% of respondents (N=126) indicated they would like to see identical or similar events. At River Ridge, 95% of respondents (N=78) responded in this way.
• With school staff: Mill Creek and River Ridge both had school-day staff who worked at the afterschool program. At Mill Creek, this included six staff during the school-year session and eight staff during summer session. At River Ridge, there were four school staff who worked with the school-year program, and one during summer session. The River Ridge Site Coordinator shared that school day staff referred other staff to support the program. Additionally, Neely O’Brien had a large number of volunteer staff – particularly during Summer 2024 programming – who included non-teaching school day staff, community members, parents, and subcontracted volunteer staff.

The Program Director noted that there is a growing sense of partnership and trust with school administrators at all three schools. Principals invite suggestions from the site coordinators on how they can support the program and make themselves available as needed for situations that may come up.

All three sites focused on ensuring student and family safety this year, which was reflected in their mid-year program improvement goals. The average SEL PQA score was highest for the Safe Space domain (from the SEL PQA tool). Each site coordinator attended Know Your Rights training and connected with partners and staff before establishing a plan if immigration enforcement was to come on campus. All parents understood the plan, including what they could do if this situation were to occur at school pick-up or at bus stops.
 

Opportunities for Improvement

Opportunities for improvement from the 2024-25 program year include:

• Developing community partnerships: One site added three new partners, one site added one new partner, and one site  added no new partners. There may be an opportunity for site coordinators to collaborate and share ideas related to their process for identifying and securing new partnerships. At two sites, there were challenges related to staff from community partners, including turnover, availability, and the level of support needed to lead activities. There are also challenges given limitations of the site coordinators’ capacity (as they all work schedules limited to 180 days) and not having sufficient time to hire, onboard, train, and provide ongoing support to staff.
• Focusing on Engaging Environment and Interactive Environment: All three sites identified items from the Engaging Environment domain (from the SEL PQA) in their program improvement goals. They had a small improvement in the average score from 2023-24 and can continue to strengthen their efforts in this area in future years of the grant. The average score decreased in Interactive Environment, pointing to another potential area for attention.  
• Expanding family events: All three sites offered fewer family events this year than in past years. In part, this was due to a pause of family events given concerns related to student and family safety (per Strengths, above). In the year ahead, programs can continue to offer events and prioritize gathering family feedback to inform these offerings, including via family event surveys.